Curious Cultures - Ripley's Believe It or Not!

Curious Cultures

TEACHING RESOURCES FOR 10-14 YEAR OLDS

THE PADAUNG WOMEN OF MYANMAR

25 BRASS RINGS?

Ripleys Believe It Or Not! Is s registered trademark of Ripley Entertainment Inc. Ripleys Believe It or Not! is a registered trademark of Ripley Entertainment Inc.

The Amazing World

Of Ripley!

Inspired Resources

This education pack is inspired by one man and the amazing world he lived in. It was, of course, the same planet as the rest of us inhabit, but what set Robert Ripley apart was his curious

viewpoint and insatiable appetite for the unusual and different. Some would even say the bizarre! Likewise, the lessons and activity sheets in this resource will enable your students to test and explore their imaginations, creativity and observational powers to the full.

Global Explorer

Millionaire cartoonist, renowned broadcaster, and in the 1930s voted Americas most popular man, Robert Ripley was, above all a world-class explorer and collector. Indiana Jones- style, he

was relentless in his search for astonishing artefacts to add to his collection of the truly unbelievable. He coined the phrase "Believe It or Not" and founded the ,,Odditoriums that still bear

his name.

The Gold Coast's latest new attraction

The latest of these ,,Odditoriums is the showpiece Ripley's Believe It or Not! attraction at SOUL Centre, Cavill Mall, Surfers Paradise. There, in impressive surroundings, youll find the renowned exhibits that prompt even the most reserved among us to drop our jaw. Quite simply, you wont

believe your eyes.

ODDLY

EDUCATIONAL!

Our teaching resource brings you some of the flavour of the world of Ripley and is designed to be used in conjunction with an Oddly Educational! school visit. The whole experience will stimulate curiosity but better still the projects are fun to do and fully in line with curriculum requirements. Combine these with a school visit and not only are the lessons brought to life but it will make learning outside the classroom truly Oddly Educational!

Ripleys Believe It or Not! is a registered trademark of Ripley Entertainment Inc.

Welcome to Oddly Educational!

Welcome to Ripley's Believe It or Not! Curious Cultures, which aims to introduce you and your students to a mix of the history, geography and culture behind some of the extraordinary exhibits in Ripleys ,,Odditorium in Surfers Paradise. During the course of his lifetime, Robert Ripley, born in America in 1890 travelled around the world the equivalent of 14 times visiting countries and cultures that fascinated and amazed him, so much so that he returned with collections of artefacts to show people back home. Now they are on show in Ripley ,,Odditoriums worldwide.

You can visit Ripley's Believe It or Not! with your students and learn about some of the discoveries and their impact on our lives today. There are six lesson plans designed to be used in the classroom after a school visit, each lesson refers to different artefacts in Ripleys, Surfers Paradise.

Activity - Your School Visit

In this activity, introduce your students to some of the artefacts and themed areas in Ripley's Believe It or Not! Surfers Paradise. They will have to look out for all of the items listed on the activity sheet and make notes for future activities.

Preparation

Book your visit to Ripleys. Photocopy the required activity sheets for every student. Brief your students on what you want them to do whilst they are at Ripleys.

Lesson

On the day before or morning (time permitting) of your class visit, hand out copies of the Believe It or Not! lesson plan to all your students. Explain that whilst they are at Ripleys they will see all of these artefacts ? and many more. There are over 300 exhibits in Ripleys. Discuss with your students the artefacts listed and their links to future lesson themes; money, torture, traditions and communications. Once your students arrive at Ripley's Believe It or Not! they will have to find the artefacts, with their groups, during their visit which will involve learning about other curious cultural artefacts as well.

Robert Ripley with a Genuine Shrunken Head!

Plenary

Once back in the classroom review what students have discovered by discussing the notes they made during the school trip. Find out which themes they found most interesting which may determine your decision on the sequence of the activities in Curious Cultures.

Ripleys Believe It or Not! is a registered trademark of Ripley Entertainment Inc.

CURIOUS CULTURES

Back in the classroom, after a trip to Ripleys talk to your students and recap what they discovered, and listen to which artefacts interested them most. Their responses may influence the order in which you use the lesson activities in this resource.

They are in the following order: 1 Money Timeline 2 Beauty Around the World: Chinese Lily Slippers 3 An Important Message 4 The first Vampire: Vlad the Impaler 5 Shrunken Heads- Jivaro Indians 6 Torture Chamber

This project delivers over ten hours of teaching time and can be extended through plenary sessions suggested. National curriculum mapping for Queensland follows at the end of this projects teaching notes.

Money Timeline

This lesson will give the students a historical and visual knowledge of the evolution of money.

Ripley's Link:

Congolese Spear Money.

Resources:

Balls of string Coloured card Scissors Clothes pegs

Congolese Spear Money 30 spears = male slave 40 spears = female slave

100 spears = canoe barter

Preparation:

Photocopy the activity sheet for each student.

Lesson

Discuss how money and currency has developed from ancient history to modern day. Ask students to make notes on the discussion as they will be creating a money timeline.

Using the activity sheet ask students to make notes on the different types of currency, working in groups they should cut them out and label them with the dates or time period they were introduced. Each group is to make a timeline with the string (similar to a washing line). Using the pegs they will peg each item of currency in chronological order. Groups will then move to another teams timelines to see if they have the currency items in the correct order.

In students workbooks they are to design a futuristic type of currency. Thinking about space travel how will we exchange our money for goods? Will we work on a universal scale and will there be banks in the future?

Plenary

Ask for volunteers to tell the class their ideas on the future of world currency. This will make for a lively discussion when compared to your timeline. Will we have digital money where we use cards instead of currency and the internet to transfer our money?

Ripleys Believe It or Not! is a registered trademark of Ripley Entertainment Inc.

Beauty Around the World: Chinese Lily Slippers

Ripley's Link:

Lily Slippers, Life size figurine of a traditional Chinese female with broken and bound feet, Padaung Women of Myanmar , Pudaung Neckrings (Cover)The Djerma Women from Southern Nigeria.

Resources:

Notebooks Coloured pencils/pens Internet Resources Text ,,Those Doll-sized Feet Construction/butcher paper

Preparation:

Photocopy the text ,,Those Doll-sized Feet for each student.

Broken & Bound Feet

Lesson

The practise of foot binding began in the Sung Dynasty, sometimes between 960- 976 BC. It is reported that a prince had a concubine who was required to dance with bound feet. This caused traditional families to dictate that the feet of young girls should be bound to keep them small. The term ,,Lily Feet was used to describe the tiny feet because they were thought to be very beautiful and a symbol of high-class. Thus the name of the shoes ,,lily slippers, which were made of silk and were decorated with beautiful embroidery.

Chinse Lily Slippers

The actual foot binding process began when a girl was between the ages of three and eleven years old. The foot was purposely broken and bound for two to three years, until the childs feet were a mere 3 inches long and resembled the Chinese lotus flower. The results of the foot binding were highly deformed feet that were extremely painful to walk on. Many times, the toes actually feel off because the bandages were wrapped so tight that blood could no longer reach them.

The foot binding process was outlawed in 1911 when the New Republic was formed; meaning this odd tradition lasted far more than one thousand years.

1. Read ,,Those Doll-sized Feet, and show pictures. 2. Discuss why this was done. Children must understand that this practise was discontinued about 80

years ago. 3. Discuss kinds of restrictive clothing used in our society today. For example:

a) Girdles and corsets, Neckties, Platform and high-heeled shoes, Skin-tight jeans and skirts 4. Discuss kinds of practises used today to make ourselves attractive:

a) Hairstyles (cutting and permanents), Pierces ears/noses, diets, exercise classes, brand-name clothing, shaving).

Ripleys Believe It or Not! is a registered trademark of Ripley Entertainment Inc.

5. Divide students into seven groups and assign each group a continent, and explain that as a class they will be creating a class collage titled "Beauty Around the World." Using all available resources and materials, have students research mens and womens beauty practices or traditions across their assigned continent. Groups should collect both images and texts that address these practices, and use photos, illustrations, downloaded pictures and words as material for their collages. For each different practice, they should jot down the answers to the following questions: a) Where, specifically, does this practise take place? b) Where and when did this practise originate? c) Why do people in this culture find this beautiful? d) How does this practise reflect the history of this continent? e) What does this ,,ideal of beauty say about culture? f) Does this tradition serve a practical as well as an ,,aesthetic purpose? Explain. g) How does this practise differ does from your own cultures standard of beauty? Some examples of such practices might include the Padaung women of Myanmar (Asia) who have a tradition of "neck stretching with coiled necklaces (Ripleys Exhibit), or the Dinka men of southern Sudan who are known for wearing tight corsets to emphasize their waists. Other examples may include henna painting (Asia), tattooing (Australia/ Asia/ New Zealand), lip (or ,,labret) and ear plugging (North America, South America, Asia and Africa), and ,,body swelling South America).

6. After each group has collected all the information/ text, each group creates a collage of the images and words collected for their assigned continent. (If you wish, you may cut the shapes of the continents out of construction paper, butcher paper or poster board and have the groups collages created on these, so that the final collage display will be a map of the world.) Make sure students write brief explanations of each beauty practice displayed in the collage, addressing the questions provided as guiding questions for research.

Plenary

In a later class, students present their collages and written descriptions. You might invite other classes to your "Beauty Around the World" exhibit.

The Padaung Women of Myanmar

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An Important Message

Ripley's Link:

Michael Jacksons Fedora, Michael Jackson In bubblegum, Figurine of Vlad the Impaler.

Resources:

Various Resources (Internet / Text)

Preparation:

Photocopy the activity sheet for each student.

Lesson

Throughout history some people make a huge difference or a big impact in society. It may be something they have done for the good or something which they are remembered for which wasnt so good. It is always interesting to find evidence, primary or secondary, which gives us an insight into the type of person they were.

Students will, for this lesson, research a historical person of their choosing and write a profile, which covers both the good and the bad in their biographies, explaining why they are such an important historical figure. Then they can create a comic strip about their selected historical person using the activity sheet.

The comic strip will show the historical figure recounting the things they have done in their lives from their own perspective. If the historical figure has done lots of bad things in his or her time, they may not see it this way. They may be quite proud of what they have done. The speech may include memories showing pictures of what the person remembers doing.

After the initial explanation, the teacher is to take one example of a famous person, Vlad the Impaler for example, and discuss with the class how his last speech would look and how Vlad would see himself, the fact that he brutally killed thousands of innocent people!

Students should begin by researching their chosen historical figure and creating a mind map of the important or interesting things they have done.

Plenary

Swap the biography comic strips around between the students and let them read each others to compare them. Which ones do the students think deliver a funny perspective to the persons view on their own life?

Ripleys Believe It or Not! is a registered trademark of Ripley Entertainment Inc.

The First Vampire- Vlad the Impaler

Ripley's Link:

Figurine of Vlad the Impaler

Vlad Dracula: The

Resources:

first vampire?

Coloured pencils and A3 paper

Examples of British newspaper articles from 1879.

Preparation:

Photocopy the activity sheet for each student.

Lesson

Vlad Tepes (Vlad the Impaler) is believed to be the original Count Dracula (1430-1476).The story of Dracula is based on the 25th century Romanian Prince named Vlad 111 Dracul. Young Vlad was nicknamed Dracula after his father (Who was Vlad Dracul). In Romania, Dracul translates to ,,dragon or ,,devil and the ,,a stands for ,,son of.

He was known to have burnt to death all the beggers of his kingdom at a single dinner party, and to impaled over 10,000 people on the fence posts surrounding his castle. Vlad the impaler was believed to have killed over 100,000 people in his short lifetime. Stories of his villainy were published, read, and reread, and it was these stories that led Bram Stoker to create the infamous Count Dracula we know today.

Today everyone is familiar with vampires, but in Britain very little was known of vampires before the 18th century. During the 18th century there was a major vampire scare in Eastern Europe, which brought them to public attention. Government officials frequently went off to hunt and stake vampires. This controversy was directly responsible for Englands current vampire myths.

In fact, the word Vampire only came into English language in 1732 from a German report of vampire slaying. Vampire myths and stories go back thousands of years and occur in almost every culture around the world. The vampires we are familiar with today are largely based on Eastern European myths. The vampire myths of Europe originated in the Far East, and were transported from places like China, Tibet and India on the trade caravans along the silk route to the Mediterranean. Here they were talked about and reported along the Black Sea coast to Greece, the Balkans and of course the Carpathian mountains, including Hungary and Transylvania.

After an initial class discussion about Vlad Dracul (The first Vampire) and Vampires, students should locate Transylvania on the may of Europe provided. (Hint it is in Romania). Asks students;

a) How many countries did it encompass? b) Find other interesting facts about the region. c) Get students to study the map of Europe and think about the methods of transport needed to reach

London from Transylvania. d) Locate & Read several British newspaper articles from 1879. Get students to study the ways in

which they are written. In what ways are the language and styles different from ours today? e) Then get students to imagine that they are a reporter from 1897 London. You have been sent to

write a story about vampires, due to recent vampire activity. What has been seen and heard around town? You must write your report keeping with the flavour of the time period.

Plenary

Get selected students to read news reports to the class, and or display articles around the room.

Ripleys Believe It or Not! is a registered trademark of Ripley Entertainment Inc.

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